glittyknittykitty

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November 10, 2007

Nanowrimo: sea II

She rounds the southern corner and comes along the path to Bossiney Point. There’s a dark patch out of the corner of her eye in the grassy dip on the edge of the point. She stops and stands to look properly and sees the back of a head and dark clothes and realises it isn’t anyone she recognises. There is a shimmer in the air that comes off the body. Dog Robert trots ahead and sits right next to the shoulder, so that the man’s (and she sees that it is a man) head turns to him and both of them lean towards each other, and they touch noses. Rowan takes that as a good sign.
She skips on over and moves forward in front so that she can take a good look.

Why’re you wet? She asks, as she sees the man’s bedraggled hair and the darkened patches on his suit. He has taken his shoes off and they are sitting dull now, with their shoelaces akimbo on the grass.

I was in the sea, he says, and nods his head to one side, to the inlet. She walks over and leans over to look down, to assure herself that nothing has changed.

But people don’t come IN to there, she says, they only leave.

I don’t think I came in by the sea, he says.

Her eyes are round. Did you JUMP in? she says, and she can hardly contain her enthusiasm for this idea, and how much she wants him to say yes. Her legs feel tingly and her heart is thumping at the thought. I always want to jump in- she tells him- from the top step, jump right in and see if I can touch the stones, did you touch the stones?

I don’t think I jumped in, he says, I think I fell in.

Well, from the step that would be ok, says Rowan, because it’s not very high and you are big, so you wouldn’t hurt yourself. Did you touch the rocks?

I think I fell from over there, he says, and he points at a light stripe of shining green, almost luminous now in the afternoon light.

She doesn’t know what she can say to that, because it doesn’t look like a slide or something that would be fun, like the abandoned playgrounds in Wadebridge, which they cycle to sometimes. There the slides are a dull metal, and edges that hold you in, an angle to the slide that lets you think you are going fast, but catches you at the end so that you don’t get hurt. This slide has a metal hint to it as well, but there is no dullness and it shines, and there is no gentle halting to the drop.